CECCO D'ASCOLI the popular name of FRANCESCO DEGLI STABILI, a famous Italian encyclopaedist and poet—Cecco being the diminutive of Francesco, and Ascoli, in the marshes of Ancona, the place of his birth. In 1322 he was made professor of astrology at Bologna university, but, having written a commentary on the sphere of John de Sacrobosco (pub. Venice, 1518), in which he propounded daring theories con cerning the agency of demons, he got into difficulties with the clerical party. He betook himself to Florence, where his attack on the Commedia of Dante, and the Canzone d' Amore of Guido Cavalcanti sealed his fate. He was burned at Florence in 1327.
His Acerba (from acervus), an encyclopaedic poem (best ed. Venice, 1510), consists of four books in sesta rirna, treating in order of astronomy and meteorology, of stellar influences, of physiognomy, of the vices and virtues of minerals, of the love of animals, of moral, physical and theological problems.
See G. Castelli, La Vita e le Opere di C. d'Ascoli (Bologna, 1892), and C. Lozzi, C. d'Ascoli (1904)•